On the Skin
He kisses her bare shoulder
your shoulder is beautiful
he says as he leaves to swim
She waits in her wheelchair in the shade
and tries to write something of meaning.
A woman in the cubicle nextdoor
pours water from a Mount
Franklin
an aluminium dish she takes from her knapsack.
She calls Gracie! scolding her black poodle
who wants to explore outside the circle of shade.
A man on his mobile broadcasts
I’m at Newie. What shift you workin
Last night I went to hear Neil Young
he sounded same as but his backing was shit.
I’ve been riding the Cowrie, a gnarly surf.
I’ll be here 8 tomorrow
so give us a bell no worries.
He comes back from his swim
and tells of the man with withered legs
who’d swum lap after lap his arms thrashing
the water like windmills
his torso etched with fish swimming,
his back a fishery of tattooed kois
who when he’d finished his laps
slid the wheels off his wheelchair before
loading it into his iridescent blue sports car.
She sits in the shopping centre
while he stocks up on groceries
describes the girl at the checkout, a red bird
inked on her shoulder, about to take flight.
She stirs her coffee while
she thinks of his kisses
tattooing her shoulder
as she waits in her wheelchair
and tries to write something of meaning.
Gail Hennessy 2016.
I find many layers of meaning here. A lovely, thoughtful poem that i read again just for the pleasure.
ReplyDeleteThanks Rosemary. The wind this morning has made it almost impossible to post. In the end no formatting and no first initial!
ReplyDeleteSo you get the word 'ail' which is an even better unintentional pun for this poem than my 'red' on fb was the other other day. LOL
Delete(When the wind relaxes, you could go in and edit, including title.)
Checkmate! Gale force winds here. LOL.
DeleteHow do I edit it Rosemary? A mystery!
DeleteClick on the pen icon at the bottom of your post. That will open a page you can edit. Make what changes you wish, to text and/or heading, then click Update. If you want to change title, click Revert to Draft first, make the change, then click Update. You can also click Preview before you update or publish, to make sure everything looks as you want it to, then do more editing if need be.
DeleteOh sorry, I meant to say, if you do 'Revert to Draft', afterwards you will need to click Publish. But on second thoughts, don't do that; it might republish out of sequence. It's only to get url to match post heading, which is not really crucial in this case.
DeletePowerful poem, Gail.
ReplyDeleteThanks Robbie
Delete